I stop off at Starbucks and use my credit card. Same thing with buying groceries, lunch, and dinner when my wife and I go out. Airline tickets? I’ll be using the same credit card. I do pay it off each and every month so the purchase price never has any added interest. What the purchased items do come along with are points. And the points kind of remind me of when I got Snoopy as a kid. Snoopy was a big (like 2 feet tall) plastic piggy bank that I think you got with a membership to the Chicago Tribune maybe back in 1970. I still have Snoopy and I to this day I still put loose change in Snoopy every now and then.
So why the above story? Like Snoopy and cashing in a couple hundred dollars of quarters, dimes, and nickels, I use the points to buy a golf related items off Amazon. It could be some golf balls, a golf book, or a golf training aid. Typically I like to buy a product that has either received great reviews and/or will suit a part of my game I am trying to get better on. One of my latest purchases was the CHAMPKEY PATHGUIDER Swing Plane Alignment Golf Swing Trainer.
Champkey Pathguider Swing Trainer
The reason for this purchase is because my Bushnell Launch Pro is telling me that especially with irons, I am hitting an in to out path approaching 8 to 10 or even 11 in to out. With a square face, I unfortunately impart plenty of side spin and have to account for that in how much the ball will draw or hook. So the intention is to take that 8 to 10 or 11 in to out path and halve that if possible. Having said that, you are talking about a person who used to slice the ball with an out to in path.
So let me drop a video here to show how I got on with the Champkey Pathguider
If you’d rather not watch the video, I’ll try to explain how I set things up.
Champkey Pathguider Setup
There really isn’t much to it. I’ll call it some instructions, a plastic board with velcro already attached, alignment rods with velcro on the bottom and bungies so the alignment rods won’t go flying. I put it together in 5 minutes. You should follow the instructions so you understand how you should initially setup the alignment rods. The Pathguider works equally well for those struggling with a draw/hook or a fade/slice.
I know my clubpath and that is thanks to the Bushnell Launch Pro (BLP) that I use as a golf simulator. I mentioned about the high in to out path I see up above but you can see that here in this picture with the 5 hybrid I hit.
So once I had this product setup, initially I wanted to see if I could just get my club through without hitting one of the alignment rods. According to the directions, what I was looking to do was hit a straight shot. Unfortunately one of the alignment rods was getting in the way of the cameras in my Bushnell Launch Pro so once I hit a ball while using the Champkey Pathguider, I couldn’t see the clubpath.
I removed the rod closest to the Bushnell Launch Pro so my BLP could pick up on clubpath. That worked pretty well. The unfortunate part is I still very much felt an in to out path and if anything, I wanted to see if I could go in the opposite direction with an out to in path. So I changed up the rods to give less room for the clubhead to make it between the rods. If you watch the video, you can see that didn’t go too well. On the bright side, I didn’t break the product.
I rearranged the rods but that didn’t work very well. So I went back to what you might call the basics.
- Chipping
- Pitching
- Full Shot
While things weren’t working with attempting to hit a full shot (on me, not the product), the Champkey Pathguider is actually setup for chipping, pitching and full shots. This is done by simply placing the ball in a different position. I see a chip as being a shot up to about 20 yards, a pitch from 20 yards to 40 yards and then a full shot pretty much anything over 40 yards. You may also think of chipping as a 1/4 swing, pitching as a 1/2 swing, and then a full shot with what should be considered your normal swing. I believe it is best to start off with a high lofted wedge. I used a 60 degree wedge.
I started chipping and quickly found that I could hit a number of shots that ranged anywhere from 3 to 5 degrees in to out clubpath. The reason why this was happening is because I setup the alignment rods in such a way that I didn’t have a whole lot of leeway in either moving my iron clubhead path in to out or out to in. I hit about a dozen where I could feel confident the club was easily getting through the rods and even on slow motion video (yeah I have a cheapy camera), the clubpath looked to be going fairly straight.
I then moved on to pitching. Hitting about 40 yard shots. Initially I ran into the same issue. A couple of shots where I hit the alignment rods. I do tend to swing inside to begin with so I even had to make a conscious effort to not hit an alignment rod on the way back. However, once you realize your swing fault and have a device like the Champkey Pathguider to help correct those faults, the learning curve comes really quick. I ended my pitching session with hitting about 10 pitches between 3 to 5 in to out path. At that point I felt confident I could move to a full swing while using the Pathguider.
I again hit about 10 full shots using the Champkey Pathguider. I felt like I was forcing my swing a little bit but I think any new swing change has a different and sometimes awkward feel. Eventually I was consistently hitting 3, 4, 5, and 6 degree club path while using the product. It was at that point that I felt my initial testing was done. But would it carry over to my golf swing without using this product?
Will the Champkey Pathguider Fix My Swing?
For me, the initial answer was no. I was seeing 8 to 10 in to out path once again when I took away the Pathguider. What, you can’t just take 100 or so swings and fix an issue in your swing? But I’m not one to give up once I’ve tried a product. So I put the Pathguider swing plane trainer down once again. Started hitting some chips, then pitches, and finally some mid irons and hybrids. Again, I was seeing improvement.
So I went through a number of clubs once again without the product and lo and behold I had a different swing feel. Not on every shot but I was starting to see consistency in my club path numbers. 3 to 5 in to out was becoming the norm. I was also seeing an out to in path start up with my driver so I had to be careful that I wasn’t going back to my old form from a handful of years ago.
Overall I am very happy with the Champkey Pathguider swing plane trainer. It did what the product is built for. Straightened out my swing plane. One negative. The sticky part with velcro on the bottom of one of the alighnment rods has come loose. I’m sure I can either get a replacement or glue it down.
Another positive. It took a couple of good accidental hits and saw no harm. No, I’m not at zero degrees but the small in to out club path is much more workable. These were my last two hits today with the same 5 hybrid I initially started this article with.
